


You're Perfect

by sansiva1203



Series: Zutara Week 2018 [6]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Bloodbending (Avatar), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Fluff, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-04
Updated: 2018-08-04
Packaged: 2019-06-21 14:45:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15560079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sansiva1203/pseuds/sansiva1203
Summary: there comes a dreadful day when katara has to teach her daughter, kya, a waterbender, about bloodbending. they don't come through unscathed, but zuko's there to help.if you squint really hard it might be a little dark but not really? so rated t"Zuko holds his daughter against his chest and rubs her back soothingly. 'Hush now, it’s okay little turtleduck. Everything’s all right. You’re safe, and your mother’s safe, and that’s all that matters. You’re okay. It’s okay.' "





	You're Perfect

**Author's Note:**

> written for day 6 of zutara week 2018, based on prompts on tumblr. set post zuko’s crowning as fire lord, canon compliant with a:tla, divergent from korra.
> 
> there's a rainbow rowell quote in here, comment if you find it!

It’s been a hell of a long time coming, but Katara’s been pushing it off and dreading this day since Kya first showed signs of waterbending. She hadn’t told Zuko about any of it, and she’s pretty sure he hasn’t given bloodbending a thought in ages. It haunts Katara though, on every full moon. She feels the power run through her veins, quite literally. She’s tried it on herself on many occasions to hone the skill. Even though she made a promise never to use it, Katara never knows what could happen to her or her family. She’d break a promise in a heartbeat if it meant saving someone she loves.

Bloodbending isn’t even all bad. Hama may have claimed to invent the skill, but Katara found ancient scrolls older than dirt hiding deep within the archives of the Fire Nation. They depict bloodbending not as a way to act as a puppeteer, but instead to heal. The first time Katara laid eyes on this scroll when poking around once venerable libraries that have collected several inches of dust, she read up on a technique used to stop the bleeding of open wounds. The interest superseded the caution in Katara’s mind, and she, in a split-second decision, grabbed the knife hidden in her boot and sliced open an almost always covered piece of skin on her hip. 

There was a second of blinding pain, but Katara soon regained focus, and making sure not to use her healing powers, bloodbended the wound closed, or at least stops the flow. The blood coagulates in mere seconds without having to apply pressure, and upon further inspection of the scroll, it prevents infection too. Best of all, since using bloodbending for healing wouldn’t be forcing the liquid to move against someone’s will, it requires less energy than completely healing the cut. This, Katara thinks, could prove to be very useful.

Of course, she doesn’t tell anyone about her new discovery. Zuko obviously knows that she’s been looking into old texts, specifically on waterbending, but he’s busy with his new reign, and the young couple has more important things to do than talk about dusty libraries. 

Katara experiments with bloodbending a couple of more times before the guilt became overwhelming and she just couldn’t deal with the sleepless nights and waving off Zuko’s concern. She grabbed all of the scrolls she found, hid them in a chamber she had Toph carve out long ago within the giant fountain in their main garden, one only accessible by a waterbender, and vowed never to look at them again unless it was absolutely, completely necessary.

But Kya’s sixteen now and the one time she traveled to the market by herself (the  _ one time! _ ) there was an attempt on her life. She survived, of course, no physical harm done to her or any innocent bystanders, but Katara begins to have sleepless nights once again and resolves on teaching her baby girl the one thing she vowed never to touch, but it seems like Katara’s breaking a lot of promises these days. 

She pulls aside Kya four separate times, and loses her courage during every instance. It’s the fifth time that Katara asks her daughter if they could have a word in the garden that Kya finally makes her mom spill the beans.

“You’re not pregnant again, are you?” she asks, and Katara lets out a small, tight laugh. If only it were that simple. 

“No, darling, I’m not pregnant, and I’m not planning on being pregnant ever again.” Katara pauses for a moment, and then asks shakily “Are you?” She doesn’t know if she wants to know the answer.

“Agni, Mom, no way! I’m like sixteen, and I’m a freaking master waterbender, which means I’m a master healer. I’m young, not stupid.” Katara lets out a breath she hadn’t realised she was holding. One less thing to think about, but she always knew her daughter was responsible.

“Okay, good. I wasn’t implying that you were. Actually, the reason I wanted to talk to you today, and the reason I’ve been trying to talk to you for the past couple of weeks, is because I think you  _ are  _ responsible.” Taking another deep breath, Katara musters up the courage to tell her daughter what she was once told decades ago.

“Have you ever heard of… bloodbending?” The immediate color change of Kya’s face tells Katara the answer in a way no words can. “Where did you learn what that was?”

In a moment, Kya’s face goes from shock to embarrassment. “Don’t worry, you’re not going to be in trouble, I just want to know how you found out so that we can make sure Roku doesn’t find out before he’s supposed to.” Roku was Katara’s youngest of four, also a waterbender, but only seven years old. It would be  _ long _ time before Katara had this conversation with him. 

“I… may have snooped around your journal from when you were younger?” Kya’s inflection makes her drawn out sentence seem like a question. She braces herself for a thorough scolding, but is surprised to see that her mother seems amused instead.

“I always knew that your Uncle Sokka gave you the troublemaker gene!” Katara confesses with a smile. Wow. She’s really not mad then.

Their conversation quickly changes to a somber one, though, when Katara continues what she came here to say. 

“Well, I guess it’s easier on me that you already know what it is, but I guess now you’ll know that I broke that promise.” Kya gasps loudly, immediately recalling the fact that Katara had once never wanted to think about bloodbending again.

Katara continues. “I found a few scrolls, a long time ago. It was before I married your father, definitely before I had your older brother, and I was reckless. Katara shifts her casual skirt down a few inches to show her daughter a faint scar along her hip.

“I was dumb, and I tried it on myself. Nothing happened, of course, but it’s something that I expect you never do, okay? You are never to bloodbend without me and my explicit instructions.”

“You mean… you’re going to teach me how to bloodbend?” Kya’s expression is a mixture of shock, disbelief, and something else Katara can’t quite place. Fascination, maybe?

“Yes.” Katara ceases conversation to suddenly stand up. She motions for her daughter to follow her to the rim of the fountain. Doing something she hadn’t done in over twenty years, Katara waterbends the streaming jets in the fountain away from the very center of the stone structure. She holds the water away from the ice covered pocket hidden there, letting it pool around while she melts the ice with her other hand. Instructing her daughter to retrieve the scroll, Katara stands still, parting the water like Kya is some sort of god. It makes her feel powerful in way she hasn’t felt in a long time, but that’s for a reason. 

A few minutes later, Katara and Kya are settled a couple of yards away from the fountain, and Kya opens the first scroll with excitement and horror. It’s thankfully one about healing, and she studies it intently, while Katara is flooded with memories of the first time she bloodbended. They are not very pleasant.

Katara allows her daughter to view all of the scrolls except for one particularly gory one that depicts crimes so gruesome that even Katara threw up the first time she saw it. 

“Later,” she promises. “When you’ve seen worse things, you can look at this. But I promise you with all of my heart, not this one.”

Kya nods solemnly, trusting her mother’s words. She focuses her attention back to the multiple other scrolls, and analyzes them intently. Before either of them know it, the sun has set and the moon has risen. It’s both a full moon and a blood moon, making Katara and Kya more powerful than they have been in years.

“Good timing,” Katara remarks, “Your first time bloodbending will be easy.”

****

Katara and Kya return to the house only after sunrise. Zuko knows that with the blood moon, both of them would have been especially powerful that night, so he doesn’t comment on their nightly endeavors, but he knows something’s up when Katara slumps into bed and pulls the covers over her head. In over two decades of sharing a bed with Katara, he has never once seen her fully cover herself with the blankets in the Fire Nation. Not a single time.

He knows, though, that prodding the answer out of her won’t work by a long shot; Katara, if nothing, is amazingly stubborn, but maybe he can get something out of Kya. She seemed equally, if not more, disturbed.

Zuko decides to wait a couple of days before approaching his eldest daughter for information. “Kya, honey?” he asks gently. “I know that you’ve always been your mother’s daughter, but I was hoping you could tell me what you guys were up to during the blood moon. Your mom seems pretty shaken up and she’s been out of it for the past few days, and I really want to help her.” Kya breaks immediately. She may be strong, but she’s very,  _ very _ in touch with her emotions, and she can get genuine tears flowing faster than someone can say “pepper spray”. 

Kya tells her dad everything that happened that night, from studying the scrolls to Kya bloodbending her mother to Katara cutting herself, but Kya not being able to heal it. 

“She was bleeding out,” Kya sobs out, barely coherent, “and I couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t stop it!” Zuko holds his daughter against his chest and rubs her back soothingly. “Hush now, it’s okay little turtleduck. Everything’s all right. You’re safe, and your mother’s safe, and that’s all that matters. You’re okay. It’s okay.”

****

Zuko stays with his daughter for another hour, getting the rest of the story out between heaving sobs and endless tears that have been threatening to break out since that night, and decides that he needs to speak to his wife that night. She may be stronger and older and more experienced than her daughter, but that doesn’t mean she’s heartless. Katara’s one of the most tender people he’s ever met, and he intends to make sure she stays that way. 

It’s the fourth night after the blood moon when Zuko approaches his wife. “Katara?” he asks slowly, making sure his presence is wanted.

“I talked to Kya today. It seems like you guys had an,,, interesting night a few days ago.” Katara snorts. “Interesting is a light way to put it. It was downright horrifying.” She laughs without humour, and waits for her husband to continue. She knows Zuko must have some sort of outline to guide the conversation with.

“Well, first, I wanted to make sure you’re okay physically. We don’t need to call the healer, do we?” Katara whips her head around, hair flying behind her.

“Who the hell do you think I am?” she almost shouts. Zuko puts his hands up in imaginary surrender, and Katara blinks the anger away, 

“Sorry,” she whispers, “I’ve been kind of on edge lately.” The very first tear of the night comes streaming down Katara’s cheek, and Zuko gently brushes it away with his thumb.

“Hey, hey look at me.” He waits to continue speaking until Katara looks into his eyes.

“It’s okay that you’re not okay. Whatever you’re feeling is okay. I’m not expecting you to be the same person you were however many years ago. I’m not expecting you to even be the person you were two weeks ago. The only thing I’m expecting from you, the only expectation I will ever have for you, is that you talk to me. I love you, and I’m here for you, and I will never, ever tell you that you’re anything less than perfect. Because you are. You’re perfect. And you always will be.”

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading! every view, kudos, and comment truly makes my day and means so much for me, so if you think the fic is deserving, leave kudos and comments please!
> 
> come yell at me on tumblr: find me at veridian-nougat


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